Maine: The review

Admittedly I didn’t see much of Maine to give a proper review, so you’re going to have to cope with just a report of my presentation at The Jackson Laboratories in Bar Harbour, Maine.

The Jackson Laboratory has been associated with the work of 20 Nobel Prize winners since 1960, through its own research and through the knowledge and resources it shares with the research community.

The Maine facility houses only mice, which they use for their own research as well as producing certain strains of transgenic mice for laboratories around the country. Although I only briefly saw the facilities, I was impressed with the care and diligence which every employee used when checking, feeding and rehousing the hundreds of thousands of mice that the facility holds.

The talk was a success, with around 70-80 people turning up to listen to how they could get involved with breaking down the barriers of information and understanding that exist between the public and the researchers with respect to animal research. While talking about the development of the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine one scientist pointed out that a member of the faculty, also present at the talk, had played an important part in the studies I was discussing. You never know who’s going to turn up to the talks!